August

January: Week Three

"So how are we feeling this morning, Cadmus?"
The bed dipped as Adrian, Caddy's group leader sat down on the right edge of it.
Caddy shrugged and continued to stare at the wall. A moment of silence passed, and he realized that Adrian was still waiting for an answer.
"It's - I'm alright, I guess."
Adrian waited. Caddy wiped his eyes.
"I don't want to go to the doctor anymore."
Adrian put one hand soothingly on his shoulder and rubbed it, and Caddy felt that familiar homesickness rise up again; he longed for the hand that touched him to be familiar, to be his father's gentle rub. Adrian was nice, and Adrian was kind, but Adrian wasn't his dad.
"I know, Caddy, but we talked about this, remember? We agreed that if I made it so that if you go today, you don't have to go anymore for at least another month, then you would be OK with that. And remember - if you go today, you might find out that you don't need to take the shots anymore because your change could be pretty much done."
That just made Caddy start to tremble.
"Caddy, what's wrong? You don't want to stop taking the shots?" Adrian frowned. "I know you hate them, and you say that they're uncomfortable."
Caddy rubbed his eyes again.
"But if I stop, then I'm going to change all the way."
Adrian cooed and used his fingers to gently comb through the tangles in Cadmus' hair.
"Caddy. Listen to me. You were changing anyway. You're going to change anyway. The shots were just to regulate your hormones during the process. But they aren't in control of what happens to you."
Caddy whimpered.
"I just want to be a boy, Adrian."
Adrian leaned over, stretching bodily across Caddy as if he could protect him from something unseen.
"I know, Caddy. But you're not."

~:~

Cadmus asked to have his dad present for his first full internal exam, but when his father arrived, Caddy immediately wished that he hadn't. Phidias entered the curtained room already looking bewildered, He seemed flustered, uncertain about anything that was going on; he kept glancing around nervously at the room, the equipment, the smiling carrier nurses. Adrian got up from the chair, where he had been sitting and holding Cadmus' hand, and went over to greet the older man.
"Dr. Alexander. A pleasure to see you again. Please, sit. Caddy's been waiting for you."
Adrian gestured towards the chair he'd inhabited earlier. Phidias looked around, still a bit discombobulated; after a moment, he shook Adrian's hand weakly and took the seat, offering Caddy a thin smile before taking up his son's hand.
"How're you feeling, Buster?"
Caddy offered the same thin smile in return.
"Scared." he answered, truthfully. Adrian stepped closer.
"Dr. Alexander, what's going to happen today will be a very simple, very quick procedure. We've already taken some urine samples, his vitals and a little bloodwork; that will run while the exam is going on, and then Caddy can get his results before we leave here. In a minute, the doctor's going to come in, he's going to ask Caddy a few questions, then have Caddy lie on his back, and he's going to use his fingers - just his fingers, Caddy - to come in so that he can have a quick look inside Caddy's female organs. It won't be any different than your basic gynecological exam, and Caddy might feel some discomfort, but there shouldn't be any significant pain, and it'll all be over in five minutes or less, OK?"
Phidias nodded numbly. Caddy's hand slipped out of his grasp. Phidias felt out of place here. He had no understanding of any of this, no idea what was going on or what to say. On the table next to him were balloons, a stuffed grizzly bear, and a little wrapped gift. He stared at it for a minute. Was he supposed to bring a gift? Adrian noticed his gaze.
"It's become a bit of a tradition, here at the Centre, for our new carriers to receive a little present on the occasion of their first female exam or their Change completion. Whichever happens first." Adrian smiled at Caddy.
"Do you want to open yours now or after?"
Caddy picked pieces of lint off the hospital blanket with his trembling hands and didn't look at his dad.
"After, please."
Adrian nodded.
"OK."
Over Adrian's shoulder, another nurse entered, smiling eagerly at Cadmus, and Caddy's eyes went to her. Adrian turned to follow his gaze, and the nurse signaled that they were ready, if he was. Adrian turned back to Caddy.
"The doctor's here. You going to be OK?"
The doctor breezed in shortly after that, a solidly built man in a starched white lab coat.
"Well!" his eyes scanned over Caddy. "Is this the patient?"
Caddy couldn't speak, and nodded instead. The doctor looked over Phidias.
"I'm sorry, sir, it's carriers only in this area."
"I'm his father."
Phidias replied, resolutely, looking evenly back at the man. The doctor processed this.
"Alright. Well, let's get started."

The first half of the exam went smoothly enough; the doctor asked what felt like a hundred embarrassing questions, and Caddy answered all of them without looking at his father. It was strange, having his dad there, this poor, disoriented man in his small wire-rimmed glasses, staring at the whole scene with a look of vague horror, as if watching a car crash or a train wreck - something terrible that he had no power to stop. Caddy felt an itch of guilt for bringing him here, into this part of his life, into this part of his world. He should have just left him at the house, with its pretty painted walls and the dark wooden wainscoting and all his thousands of books. Caddy was old enough to deal with this on his own. He answered a few more questions, then the doctor finished writing and closed the chart.
"OK." he said, and Caddy felt a little bit of dread well up like bile in the back of his throat. "Go on and sit back."
Adrian was watching from a place just behind the doctor, halfway leaning against the wall with two other carrier nurses, biting his nails as the scene went on. Caddy looked to him for reassurance; he smiled and gave a short wave. Caddy scooted to the edge of the table as the doctor instructed him, then laid back. The ceiling above him was decorated, and it suddenly became clear to Caddy that the room must often be used for this purpose. He imagined who had sat on the table before him - was it Adrian? The nurse? Another teenager, perhaps. The doctor was coating his gloved fingers in something and then suddenly the blanket was up and the doctor was there and Caddy had enough time to register wetness, and then a stabbing pain. He cried out, and Adrian and his father appeared immediately, looking down on him from either side of his hospital bed. The doctor pulled his fingers away.
"Are you able to calm him down?"
"Perhaps you should be more gentle." his father snapped. Adrian glanced at him for a second, then looked back at Cadmus. His black hair cascaded down around his face, seeming to fall towards Caddy. He tucked it behind his ear.
"Caddy, please. Now, we talked about this. But if you just let him do it quick, it really won't hurt."
Caddy shook his head, tears welling up again.
"You said it wouldn't hurt, Adrian! You promised it wouldn't hurt!"
Adrian nodded and stroked Caddy's face.
"I know, Caddy, I did, and I am doing everything in my power to help to fulfill that promise. But it only works if you work with me. If you get too tense, it's going to be uncomfortable, no matter what, OK? So please, calm down, alright?"
Phidias looked nervously at Caddy, then the doctor.
"Maybe he could have this exam at another time - "
"No!" Caddy was shaking his head, propping himself up on his elbows. "No, Dad, I'm fine. Please. I want to do it now." he wiped his eyes. "I just didn't expect it to feel so..." he glanced over at Adrian. "Uncomfortable."
The doctor was looking skeptically up at him from his seat between his legs.
"Are you going to be able to sit still, Caddy?"
Caddy nodded vigorously.
"Because I don't want you to get upset while my fingers are inside of you. Your tissue's new, Caddy, and I don't want to cause you any damage."
Caddy shook his head.
"I'll - I'll be fine."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Then lay back down."

He wasn't fine. But it was so close to being over when he freaked out the second time that the doctor had ordered Phidias to be taken out of the room, then told the nurses to hold Caddy's legs still while he finished the exam anyway. Caddy had really lost it then, when he'd realized that they weren't letting him stop, weren't letting him up or away. But Adrian's face was there, in front of him, trying to talk to him and calm him down, and for some reason, that helped. Caddy almost cried out when the doctor pulled his fingers away, but Adrian was there, looking at him so anxiously and expectantly that Caddy felt that somehow, if he cried, it would only disappoint him.

Afterwards, he sat shaking and clutched his stuffed grizzly bear, hanging on to the thing for dear life. His dad remained excluded from the room, pacing in the hall outside, and Adrian sat at the edge of his bed and dabbed at his face with a tissue while the doctor wrote his summary down in Caddy's chart. After a few minutes, he closed the file, handed it off to a nurse, and looked up at Adrian with irritation, and not a little amount of contempt.
"The carrier is fine. All systems are healthy."
Adrian exhaled a little, and quietly said his thanks, then got up to help Caddy get his stuff together. The doctor continued to watch them both, then suddenly spoke.
"Here's some advice, Adrian - you better talk to this boy about his new status in life. I barely even touched him and he's crying. If he can't take this, how the hell's he going to take a man?"

~:~